


Mosquito Bites

by JeanjacketCarf



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampires, F/F, F/M, Near Dark AU/Fusion, No Revenants (Wynonna Earp), POV Wynonna Earp, characters are vaguely younger, dirty redneck vampires, vaguely cursed ghost river triangle, wayhaught takes a few chapters, willa/bobo is there and honestly creepier than canon, wyndolls happens very quickly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:15:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23539720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeanjacketCarf/pseuds/JeanjacketCarf
Summary: One year after Uncle Curtis' death dragged her back to town, Wynonna is still hated by everyone in Purgatory and working a dead end job that she hates. She spends too much time drinking and sleeping around but what she really wants is to escape, never mind how much her baby sister, Waverly, wants her to stick around. Then she meets Xavier and things quickly go awry.While Wynonna struggles with a world turned upside down and longings she can't deny, Waverly sets out with an enigmatic FBI agent to find her sister and bring her home, whatever the cost.
Relationships: Waverly Earp & Wynonna Earp, Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught, Xavier Dolls/Wynonna Earp
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	1. if my heart's still pumping blood

**Author's Note:**

> I am basing the plot here mostly off Kathryn Bigelow's 1987 movie Near Dark but with some changes to accommodate the Wynonna Earp characters and backstory so it's sort of a fusion of the two. You aren't required to have seen the movie to understand this, in fact it might spoil it for you, but I highly recommend it. It's a good movie if you like vampires.

It was Sunday night and Wynonna didn’t want to go to work come morning. She wanted the night to never end.

Around 1 am, she took her sixth shot of Fireball and caught sight of him across the room. He was gorgeous and looking right at her. When they met eyes, he smiled and lifted his beer in a salute.

It was a country western place and full of people in cowboy hats and boots stomping away on the wood floor. Someone was howling as they rode the mechanical bull. But this guy just stood against the wall, half shrouded in shadow. He wore a leather jacket and dog tags over a nothing of a green v-neck tee. It left little to the imagination. Even from the bar she could see he was all dark skin and muscle.

She flipped her hair over her shoulder and puffed out her chest a bit, winking coyly. She figured she might as well give him a show too.

He seemed to take that as enough invitation because he made his way through the crowd to stand beside her, resting his arm on the bar top.

“Hey,” he said, leaning in close so she could hear him over the music.

“Hey.” She smiled up at him. God, he was tall. Her throat was going a little dry, her hands a little shaky as if she wasn’t an expert at picking up dudes at bars and leaving them in the morning. “No offense or anything but this doesn’t really look like your kind of place.”

She hoped he took it for the hint it was and not too much of an assumption about his taste in music.

He shrugged and scanned the crowd.

“Nah, it’s not really my scene. But they were open late and still serving.” He wiggled the beer bottle at her. Some part of her registered that it was full, not a sip taken out of it, but she didn’t pay that part much mind. He was leaning in closer and she could smell his cologne. It was yummy. “What do you say? Want to go somewhere else?” He asked voice low and rumbly.

Before he even finished the sentence she was already raising her hand to signal to the bartender she wanted to close out her tab.

She must have been drunker than she thought because she tripped going down the front steps. He caught her and for a moment she was flush against his chest. 

He laughed a little awkwardly.

“Woah! Are you okay there?

His skin was strangely cool. It felt nice against her own fevered skin. She pushed away, blushing.

“Uh, yeah. Totally.” Mentally, she scolded herself. She was Wynonna frickin’ Earp. She was the one who loved ‘em and left ‘em. Sex had nothing to do with emotions. “Do you have a car?”

He shook his head. 

“No, I walked. Do you want to join me? It’s beautiful tonight.”

She shrugged, supposing he was kinky and wanted to do it outside. She didn’t mind. He reached out and took her hand, leading her away from the brightly lit parking lot into the dark fields.

It was late summer and the heat radiated off the dusty ground, the air full of the sound of crickets. She caught the glint of his smile in the distant lights and his grip on her hand tightened.

“You know I never noticed before but the night is so bright. So loud. It’s blinding, it’s deafening.” He was a little breathless as he talked.

Wynonna looked around.

“Seems pretty dark to me. And quiet. No one even flies over Purgatory. Where are you from?”

“Oh, everywhere.” His shoulders moved in a broad shrug. “Let’s stop here.” He stopped abruptly and for the second time she collided with his chest. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “You’re beautiful, you know that?”

Wynonna giggled nervously. Yeah, she was drunker than she meant to be.

“Listen, you seem like a sweet guy-” He cut her off with a kiss.

Pulling away, he whispered, “I’m not so sweet.”

She was a little jarred, a little starstruck but she forced herself to continue.

“Right, whatever. What’s your name?”

He frowned, or she thought he did. It was hard to tell in the dark.

“You want to know my name?”

She squeezed his bicep.

“Sure. Why wouldn’t I?”

“It’s Xavier,” he said heavily.

“Okay, Xavier. Since you’re not from around her, I want to give you a disclaimer. I’m Wynonna Earp, whiskey soaked and reckless. I’ve slept with half the guys in this town but everybody hates me. I shot my daddy in the back when I was twelve. I’m a mess basically.” She paused for breath. She didn’t know why she was telling him this except that she felt sorry for him and like she was inexplicably already falling for him. It was better to scare him off. “So if you want to come out here and talk about the stars, you should know I’m going to break your heart.”

He was silent for a long moment. Finally, he cleared his throat loudly.

“I wouldn’t worry about that. I don’t have much of a heart left to break.”

On instinct, she reached out and placed her hand on his chest, right over his heart. His hand came up to lightly clasp her wrist, his thumb rubbing over her pulse point.

“Don’t sell yourself short, Xavier.”

His breath came out in a hiss.

“I like the way you say that.”

It was getting unbearably mushy so Wynonna rose up on the balls of her feet and kissed him. He kissed her back, sweet and slow. She curled her fingers into his neck and his arms encircled her, pulling her close. 

His lips moved off her mouth, kissed all along her jaw to her throat. She threw back her head as he suckled on her pulse. Her eyes closed in pleasure. Then, she felt the teeth.

Wynonna gasped in pain and Xavier jerked back, his mouth and chin dripping with something.

“No, no. I can’t.” He staggered back kicking up dirt.

She touched her neck and her finger tips came away slick with hot sticky blood.

“Son of a bitch,” she said in amazement.

“I’m sorry,” Xavier said before turning on his heel and sprinting away across the desert.

“Hey, come back here. What the hell?” She managed weakly, but he was already lost in the dark.

Waverly rolled out of bed to the sound of her phone ringing. The Fraggle Rock theme played through and then repeated while the phone threatened to vibrate off the bedside table. She groggily reached over and unplugged it. She didn’t recognize the number but she figured telemarketers didn’t call at five am. Reluctantly, she unlocked it and picked up. 

“Hello?”

“Hi,” a man’s voice on the other end said. “This is Waverly Earp, right? I got your number off your sister’s phone. She doesn’t have a password, by the way.”

Waverly sat up straight.

“Is Wynonna okay?”

“Well, no. I’m Earl from the Honky Tonk and I just finished cleaning up. I was going home when I saw there was still a car in the lot. Looked inside and sure enough, there’s Wynonna.” He said her name with an exasperated familiarity that Waverly was used to hearing even from complete strangers. Her sister got around. “Anyway, she’s shaking like she’s coming down on something and can’t really talk but she told me to call you and not 911.”

Waverly groaned and scrubbed her free hand across her face. 

“Okay thanks, Earl, for looking out for her. I’ll come get her.”

Waverly didn’t bother getting dressed, just pulled on a light hoodie and a pair of boots and headed to her car. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the only early morning trip she’d had to make to rescue her wayward sister since she’d come home over a year ago. It was annoying but she was grateful that she was there to do it. In the years Wynonna had been away, who had been there to look after her?

She pulled into the parking lot of the Honky Tonk just as the sky began to brighten with the coming dawn. She pulled her Prius up beside Wynonna’s beat up truck and peered inside. Wynonna was curled up on the front bench seat with a pinched, pained expression. She didn’t seem to notice Waverly.

Waverly tapped on the glass and gained a startled lurch from her sister. The door was unlocked so she pulled it open and gave Wynonna a shake.

“Hey, Nonna. Are you okay?”

Wynonna groaned, turning her head to press it into the leather bench. 

“Ugh. Baby girl, I don’t feel so good.”

Waverly’s pulse picked up. Drunk Wynonna she could handle but what if she’d graduated to drugs? Her fingers itched to pick up her phone and call an ambulance.

“Did you take something?”

“No. Some prick bit me.”

At Wynonna’s insistence, Waverly didn’t call 911. She just bundled her sister into her car and drove her home with the promise that they’d come back for the truck later. Up close Wynonna was sweaty and flushed and when the sun began to creep over the horizon she cringed away from it like it physically hurt her.

Waverly kept sneaking glances at her as she drove. Maybe she was being irrational but she really, really didn’t want Wynonna to die. She’d lived most of her life without parents- daddy dead, momma run off- while her sister was distant at best and completely gone at worst. This last year they’d lived together at the old homestead had been one of the best she’d ever had, even if it only happened because of Uncle Curtis dying. With Gus retired down south, Wynonna was all the family Waverly had left and she wasn’t eager to lose that. Which of course meant her sister had to have a death wish. 

“You’re sure we can’t have someone look at it?” Waverly asked.

Wynonna shook her head.

“I don’t have rabies or anything. He gave me one hell of a 24 hour flu is all.”

Needless to say, Waverly wasn’t convinced but she couldn’t force Wynonna to go to the doctor if she didn’t want to.

When they pulled into the homestead’s driveway of sorts, or front lawn you would say if there was any grass, Wynonna burst out of the car before Waverly could put it in park. She beat a hasty retreat to the house, ducking her head against the sun. Waverly watched her go apprehensively. She wondered if she could give Jeremy a call. He worked at the local clinic. He might have some idea what was going on.

“I’m going to sleep!” Wynonna shouted as she slammed the door to her room and audibly collapsed on the bed with a groan.

Waverly chewed on her thumbnail but went ahead and started her day. She brewed tea, got dressed, and set up her laptop at the kitchen table. Her shift at Shorty’s didn’t start until the evening so she had time to work on her side gig. She did remote research for anyone who paid, mostly professors at the university in the Big City and some authors writing historical fiction. When she described it to people they always assumed it was something creepy, but she liked learning about the history of the region and Wild West stuff was ever popular. It seemed to impress her clients that she was a direct descendent of Wyatt Earp too, even if it had never meant much to her actual life.

She was engrossed in census records from 1858 when she realized that the sun was setting. She got up and stretched. Wynonna still hadn’t stirred. She checked the clock, only two hours until her shift started. She hoped her sister would be up before she had to leave. Otherwise she’d be worrying about her the whole night.

Behind her the door to Wynonna’s room cracked open. Wynonna stuck her face out and squinted into the light. She looked even worse than in the morning.

“Okay, I’m taking you to the doctor,” Waverly said.

Wynonna waved her off. “No you aren’t. I’m just hungover is all. And hungry. Do we have any food?”

Waverly’s eyebrows shot up. She was no doctor but even she knew that an appetite was a good thing. Maybe Wynonna really had just gotten too drunk.

“I can make you something. Fried tofu?”

“Oh my god, are you trying to kill me?” Wynonna gagged but she limped into the kitchen and took a seat at the table.

Waverly turned to the fridge and dug through the contents. It was an old and comfortable argument. Waverly wouldn’t buy meat and Wynonna wouldn’t eat Waverly’s vegetarian ‘crap’ or buy her own groceries. Waverly was constantly on the verge of giving in because she was worried about Wynonna starving. 

Waverly’s eyes lit on a carton of eggs shoved to the back of the fridge behind bottles of beer. She picked them up personally from Mrs. Torres who kept hens as pets and had too many eggs to deal with, so she felt they were ethically sourced and allowed them in her home.

“How about eggs?” She asked.

Wynonna made a disinterested sound. Waverly looked at her, she normally loved Waverly’s scrambled eggs.

“I just- I’m hungry, like craving so bad but I don’t know what it is,” Wynonna said scrapping at the peeling finish on the table. She got up and paced, keeping pointedly to the shadows. “Maybe I should go out. I think I need to go somewhere.”

“No, sit down. You shouldn’t be going anywhere.” Waverly went around the table and shoved her down into the seat. “Okay? You should get something into your system.”

Waverly whipped up the eggs in record time, maybe they were a little runny but she put a lot of salt and pepper on them along with a splash of hot sauce so it probably wouldn’t make a difference to Wynonna who had no taste anyway.

Wynonna took one look at the plate and started wolfing it down. Waverly sat back feeling proud of herself until Wynonna lurched up from the table and made a beeline for the bathroom. The sounds of vomiting on the other side of the door made Waverly’s stomach churn but she would have been in there to help hold back her sister’s hair if Wynonna hadn’t locked the door behind her.

She knocked hesitantly once the sounds had subsided. “Nonna, are you okay? I think we should at least call Jeremy.”

The door opened abruptly and Wynonna nearly head butted her coming out. She looked pale and her already smeared mascara from the night before was running down her cheeks. 

“I- I gotta go. Go out. I can’t stay. I have to get some fresh air.” She shoved past Waverly and went out the front door in a rush.

The dying light burned her skin and she dove for the shadows beside the barn. It was so bright she could barely see and still her body ached, her stomach rolling with a mixture of nausea and hunger. She needed to leave, she knew that somehow, she needed to get away. She needed to find him like… like she didn’t even know what. She could hardly think it was all too loud, too bright, too painful.

The screen door banged open behind her and Waverly ran out.

“Wynonna! Where are you going? I think I should take you to the hospital.”

Wynonna shook her head even though she wasn’t sure Waverly could see it. She staggered out from the shelter of the shadow and set her head toward the road ahead. Wisps of smoke rose up around her, the air filled with the smell of burning flesh. She was burning everywhere the dying rays of the sun touched.

At the end of the dusty road, half obscured by the dirt it stirred up in its own wake, was an RV that had seen better days barrelling toward the homestead. Wynonna could barely make it out but her feet moved her toward it as if drawn by magnetism.

Waverly noticed it just on the edge of the horizon and her pulse picked up. She quickened her pace to catch up with Wynonna who had at least a hundred yard head start.

“Wynonna? What’s happening? What’s going on?”

Her sister ignored her, walking steadily toward the line that separated Earp land from the rest of the desert even as she was hunched over in pain. Waverly cursed under her breath and stopped to dig her phone out of her pocket. Whatever. Wynonna was clearly unwell, she needed help not to be yelled at. Still, Waverly glanced up warily at the on coming caravan. It was probably a coincidence. Just some tourists who had gotten lost and when they saw that they had reached a dead end, well, they would turn around.

She dialed Jeremy’s number just as Wynonna stepped over the property line. He picked up on the second ring.

“Hey, Waverly! To what do I owe the pleasure?” He sounded happy if a little stressed.

“You know anything about diseases you can get from bites? I’d say Wynonna was high if she didn’t have a chunk missing from her neck.”

“Oh, hi! Hello! Didn’t expect that. Okay,” Jeremy stumbled over his own words.

Wynonna stopped, panting heavily, and glanced over her shoulder at Waverly.

“It’s fine, okay? I just need a minute.” She cringed, closing her eyes against the light as the clouds skirted across the horizon, turning the sun into a strobe. 

“Wynonna, just come back inside!” Waverly called out to her. The wind picked up nearly snatching away her words.

Wynonna turned away, her hair whipping behind her. She jerked around a second later as the winnebago skidded into a sloppy U-turn inches from her. The side door flew open, an oven mitt covered hand reaching out and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“Got you,” a voice growled as the owner hauled her unceremoniously inside.

Waverly dropped her phone and broke into a sprint. The door to the RV slammed closed. The vehicle took a wild turn, canting onto two wheels, and went back the way it came. Waverly was left running and coughing in its dusty wake.

“Wynonna!” Her voice came out in a shriek, legs giving out beneath her. She fell sprawling on the ground. “Wynonna!” Her fists beat at the road and tears began to run down her face.

As Wynonna’s eyes adjusted to the dark the first thing she saw was a bare chested man in a mangy fur coat. He was skinny and something about his narrow face and hungry eyes reminded her of a coyote. He sat on an overturned paint bucket in the back of the stripped out RV, twirling something around in his fingers.

“Oh, do it already!” A girl’s voice said to Wynonna’s left. There was a small shadowy figure standing in the corner there.

“No! That’s not what we talked about!” Xavier, the biter from the night before, stepped out of the shadows and wedged himself between her and the fur coat guy.

Wynonna scooted back until she hit the back of the driver’s chair. The driver, a man wearing a welder’s mask, turned his head to glance at her and a beam of light escaped into the space. It was so dark inside because the windows were covered in black painted and paper-mache’d on newspaper. There was only a small hole for the driver to look for. 

In the passenger seat, a beautiful black woman laughed. She touched the driver’s shoulder, a lover’s touch.

“Do you hear that, baby? They’re already fighting over her.”

Wynonna got unsteadily to her feet, more difficult with the bumping and rocking of the RV. She kept her back to the wall.

“What- what’s going on? Who are you people?”

Fur coat guy grinned, flashing a gold tooth.

“Doesn’t matter much, darling. Since soon you’ll be dead.”

Xavier growled. “You’ll have to kill me then too, Bobo.” He turned to face the woman in the passenger seat. “I bit her and didn’t drain her. By now, she’s one of us.”

“Ah shit!” Fur coat guy, Bobo, lurched to his feet and kicked his makeshift chair, sending it clattering away. Wynonna flinched. The woman in the passenger seat just laughed.

“You trying to replace me, X?” The girl’s voice in the shadows asked. “I’m not good enough for you?”  
Xavier was keeping a wary eye on fur coat guy, shoulders tense, hands curled like claws, but he addressed the girl. “I didn’t know she was your sister.”

 _Sister? What? What?_ Wynonna’s mind reeled.

The Winnebago banked and the faint light shifted making the cabin incrementally brighter. Wynonna froze.

Standing in the corner was a ghost. Was Willa. Just the same as the last time Wynonna had seen her. There was the long straight hair, the gangly fourteen year old limbs that she moved with grace, and even the faded pink dress with embroidered flowers.

She smiled at Wynonna and it was not a friendly smile.

“Hi, Nonna. Long time no see.”

Wynonna backed into the wall and banged her head. She hardly felt it, what with her world view shattering at her feet.

There was a silver pistol in her dead big sister’s tiny child’s hand, the hammer cocked, and it was pointed at her. Bobo was brandishing a switchblade.

 _What the fuck? What the fuck?!_ She might have just been saying it in her head or out loud it was hard to tell.

Xavier’s snarl turned inhuman, a sound that ignited some subconscious alarm system. Bobo stepped up to him, chest to chest, his lips pulled back from his teeth.

The RV slammed to a stop sending everyone staggering.

The driver turned around, flipping up his welder’s mask, revealing an impressive mustache.

“Now, what in the hell is going on?”

Xavier had stumbled back a few steps until his back was pressed up against Wynonna’s face. Now he turned to face the driver, keeping a hand on her shoulder. Wynonna should have wanted to shrug it off but he was the only familiar thing in this fever dream and she clung to that.

“I turned her, Doc. If you kill her, you’ll be killing me too,” Xavier said.

“My baby wants her gone,” Bobo snarled. “So she’s gone.”

The driver, their leader it seemed, Doc rested his arms on the back of his chair and stroked his mustache meditatively. He looked to the woman in the passenger seat.

“Kate? Since we’re getting everyone’s opinions, what’s yours?”

She was half shrouded in shadow but Wynonna could feel the woman’s eyes on her, considering.

“Well, I don’t have as much stake in it as the boys but it would be a shame to lose X and it might be fun to play with someone new. Don’t you think?”

Doc hummed. “So two for, two against. We done got ourselves a conundrum.”

“Uh,” Wynonna gulped and raised her hand. “Can I vote? Because I vote to not get killed.”

Kate and Doc laughed and surprisingly so did Willa. That joyful ringing laugh Wynonna remembered from so many summers ago.

“Never mind, let’s keep her. I forgot she was funny.” Willa lowered the gun and tucked it into the ribbon belt of her dress. She did a little curtsy in Wynonna’s direction.

 _Again_ , Wynonna thought. _What the fuck?!_

Bobo growled and retreated to squat in the dark of the back of the RV.

Doc slapped the cracked leather of his seat.

“That was easy. I truly am a great negotiator.”

Only when the RV started moving again, did Xavier relax. He turned to look at her with his handsome face and kind eyes. 

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

And Wynonna punched him right in that handsome face.

The other woman, Kate, laughed again. “Oh, I think I’m going to like you.”

Xavier rubbed his face. “Okay, I guess I deserved that.” He looked at her, pleading. “Will you stay? I’ll tell you everything. Just stay.”

Wynonna’s pounding heart had turned into something quick and quiet in her chest, sweat was pouring down her face, her stomach ached and she was so hungry. She had to be dying. 

“You’ll fix this?” She asked.

Xavier nodded. “I’ll try.”

Feeling like she was in the midst of some twisted dream, Wynonna nodded back. “Okay, then.”

The Winnebago drove on for a long time as the sun set and far into the night. Wynonna drifted in and out of consciousness, vaguely aware of Xavier pressed up against her side.

Doc and Kate switched off driving duty. Bobo growled and paced. Willa picked at her dress and sang nursery rhymes. Wynonna imagined this was what family road trips must be like.

Eventually, Doc pulled the RV into an empty warehouse and the others bustled out. Bobo carried Willa on his shoulders and helped her get down a bike strapped to the back. 

Doc and Kate started making out furiously all while hustling off into the night. 

Wynonna watched, lost and dazed.

“Come on.” Xavier gently took her by the elbow and pulled her aside, deep into a dusty alcove. He pulled her behind him, walking backwards. He walked into a spiderweb and didn’t flinch. The sticky strands brushed against his cheek and clung to the collar of his jacket.

It was nearly black there and Wynonna could hear the others drifting away.

“Listen, I don’t know what’s going on but I need to leave. I need to go home.”

His dark eyes caught all the light in the space, the distant remnants of streetlights, and glinted so they were all she could see.

“You feel horrible, don’t you? Like you’re dying? You will if you don’t drink.”

Before she could ask what he meant, she heard the sound of a knife being drawn, a wicked looking Bowie knife flashed and then the air filled with the pungent scent of blood. It should have been disgusting but she found her mouth watering, her knees going weak.

“Did you- Did you just slit your wrist?” There was some snarky joke there but it escaped her.

Xavier rolled his eyes and presented the torn wrist. “Just drink, Earp.”

She needed no more prompting than that. She brought her mouth down on his wrist and nearly cried. The blood was like nothing she had ever tasted. It was life and light and electricity. It was chemical joy. Both her hands clamped on his arm and her knees gave out so she prayed before him. Distantly, she could feel his free hand scraping along her scalp and his voice whispering sweet nothings.

Some time later, though time had lost all meaning for her, the blood jerked away from her. She followed it mewling softly but a hand held her back. She scrambled forward, clawing for the blood, until the hand shoved her back bodily. She fell hard on the concrete but hardly felt it.

“That’s enough,” Xavier said his voice drifting to her from somewhere far away but coming closer. 

Wynonna threw back her head and laughed. She opened her eyes and grinned at him. The night was so much brighter now, she could see him as if he stood in broad daylight. There was an unsettled expression on his face but she wanted to take that away because he had made her feel so, so good.

She crawled to him again and pulled herself to her feet with his belt loops. Xavier stayed stiff watching her. 

She kissed his collar bone. “Thank you,” she whispered into his skin. Kissed his neck. “Thank you.”

Hesitantly, fingertips trailed up her spine, pausing at each notch. She arched her back, loving the sensation. She could feel everything, every cell was on fire. She kissed along his jaw and when she reached his lips, he kissed her back, drawing her into him hungrily.

This was real. Painfully real. Only Wynonna didn’t care anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

Sheriff Randy Nedley sighed, mussing up his thinning hair as he looked through the file in front of him. It was full of the usual boilerplate and some photos of burned bodies. It turned his stomach a little to look at but he didn’t know what he was supposed to do with the information it contained.

“I know it can be difficult. Realizing that this kind of thing can happen in a small town but-”

“No,” he cut her off. “I’ve seen my fair share of violence in these parts. I know just what kinds of mean sons of bitches people can be. It’s just I don’t know what you want from me.”

The FBI woman with the bright red hair shifted as if she was uncomfortable in her serious business suit.

“Yes, well. I’m just asking you to keep an eye out. If the pattern holds this group will be causing trouble in this area soon enough.”

Nedley huffed and sank lower in his chair. He didn’t want to be rude but he’d never been too good at keeping to that goal.

“See I do have trouble of a different sort. I gotta investigate a thing that doesn’t need investigating or somebody’s going to kill me.”

The red head whose name he had somehow forgotten sat up a little straighter.

“What do you mean?”

Nedley took a second to tug on his mustache.

“Look, uh, do I call you agent?”

“Agent Haught, yes.” She nodded.

He had to resist a little smile there. The name sounded like something from one of those documentaries he’d enjoyed from time to time, though the woman was hardly his type.

“Okay, Agent Haught. Around these parts everybody knows everybody and they’re all a bunch of good for nothing drunks. When I first started working here the sheriff was a man named Earp and he was a mean son of a gun. Now a couple of years later he got himself wrapped up with a biker gang and ended up dead. Me and a few people here in town sort of took on looking after his daughters.”

Haught nodded again.

“Well, that’s very kind of you but I don’t see-”

He held up a hand.

“I’m getting to it. The youngest one’s an angel and everybody loves her. Her older sister not so much. Well, little sis decides to call me up yesterday and says her sister’s been kidnapped and I gotta find her. And she’s an angel, like I said, but I’ve also seen her threaten to blow a man away with a sawed off shotgun so I gotta figure out how to tell her that her sister has not been kidnapped, she’s just run off again and not get decapitated in the process.”

“Oh…”

Before it she could collect her thoughts, there was a loud bang from outside his office and the sound of Lonnie squawking away.

“Nedley!”

The old sheriff rose uneasily to his feet, hand reaching for his service pistol on instinct. Haught pushed her chair back and looked over her shoulder, eyebrows bunching together.

“Speak of the devil,” Nedley said in a hush.

The office door burst open and Waverly barreled her way in, luckily not armed with a shotgun.

“I know you think I’m exaggerating but you have to take this seriously. She’s sick and some lunatics in a fricking Winnebago Vista from 1994 kidnapped her off our front lawn!”

Nedley sighed, noticing the dent the door handle had left in the wall.

“You’re sure she wasn’t just getting a ride? Have you tried calling her?”

“She left her phone in the house because she wasn’t planning to go anywhere,” Waverly shot back, breathing heavily.

“Did you say a 1994 Winnebago Vista?” Agent Haught asked.

Waverly turned to look at her and blinked in surprise. It was the first time she’d noticed the other woman in the room.

“What? Uh, yeah. I recognized it but I still spent half the night making sure I had it right. Now all my ads are going to be for RVs for the foreseeable future.”

Haught nodded seriously and gave Nedley a wane smile.

“Sheriff, I believe I just got a break in the case.”

Waverly and Special Agent Haught left the police station and crossed the street to Purgatory’s one and only diner. A storm front was rolling in over the plains and the sky was turning black with a tinge of green, the long grass that grew up on the cracks in the sidewalk bent over with a fierce wind.

Agent Haught stopped in the middle of the road, a hand clamped to the top of her head like she was used to holding down a hat.

“Looks like twisters.”

Waverly paused beside her, shaking her head even though the agent couldn’t see it.

“They always steer clear of here. No idea why but they do. I’ve seen them skirt right around the edge of the triangle.”

Haught turned back around and look at her quizzically, short red hair just brushing the edge of her stiff collar. Her eyes were a rich brown that sparked with intelligence. 

“I thought they said the Ghost River Triangle was cursed.”

“They do.” Waverly found herself blushing for no reason at all. “I think it is. But some disasters stay out and some can never leave.”

“Okay,” Haught said, smiling slightly.

Waverly’s face got even hotter.

Inside, Agent Haught directed her to a booth in the back and ordered them both a cup of coffee. She sat down across from her and took a moment to get situated, clearing her throat. Waverly could see the shell of professionalism reforming.

“Where are you from?” She asked.

“Uh, Ontario.” Haught looked startled.

Waverly leaned across the table. “And you’re in the FBI?”

“I have dual citizenship or I did until I went to Quantico. They make you choose.” She pulled a manilla folder from her brief case and took a folded map out. She spread it carefully across the table. Sketched across it was an outline of the Ghost River Triangle encompassing the Big City, Purgatory, Moose Ridge, Bill City, the national forest, and Crow Flats as well as a large swath of unincorporated land. “Now where did you say you saw this Winnebago?”

Wynonna frowned down at the pile of coins in her hand doing the same steady arithmetic in her head as when she was a teenage runaway. Counting the distance in cents. The blue plastic handle of the phone creaked in her other hand. 

“Damn,” she growled. She was nearly a quarter short. “You’re sure you don’t have any more?”

Xavier, standing a few feet away with his arms crossed, shook his head.

“That’s all of it.”

Wynonna laughed. Two dollars and eight measly cents to her name. She was lucky she couldn’t keep a scrap of food down because this wouldn’t buy a happy meal.

She looked dubiously at the pay phone. She’d already tested it and heard the dial tone, still she hadn’t used one in over five years.

“I guess I could always call collect.”

Xavier shrugged then held out his hand, palm up. Wynonna just looked at it.

“If you’re not gonna use it, I can buy some smokes,” he said as if that should have been perfectly obvious. Blowing out a breath, she spilled the coins into his cool palm. He tucked them into his pocket and turned to walk across to the little convenience store on the other side of the lot. Four or five big hulking fourteen wheelers were fueling up at the tall diesel pumps. The smaller gasoline pumps sat vacant.

She turned back to the pay phone, lifting the receiver off the hook and peering at the buttons. It was a crying shame that she didn’t know Waverly’s cell phone number but that was safely stored away in her phone on the bedside table at home. Like most people these days she’d given up on memorizing phone numbers and now was suffering for her hubris. Still, the number for the landline at the homestead was forever burned into her head though she hadn’t used it since her mother had left.

She pressed zero to call the operator.

“Hi, yeah I’d like to reverse the charges on a call to Earp in Purgatory. Thank you.” She was surprised at how polite she sounded. Just some ordinary person trying to call home. Not whatever she was. A prisoner? She glanced out of the corner of her eye through the glass of the phone booth. Xavier wasn’t even in sight. If she was a prisoner she would be running away not trying to reassure her sister. But she had been heading to Xavier before they’d even snatched her up. And the night before, when she’d drunk his blood? She knew that she needed him, that somehow he was a part of her now.

The call connected and her ear filled with the droning imitation of the phone ringing on the other end. She wanted to tell Waverly that she was alright but she wasn’t sure she was. She wanted to tell her that Willa was alive but she wasn’t sure what Willa was counted as alive. The phone kept ringing. Soon the answering machine would pick up and there’d be nobody to accept the charges. Wynonna slammed the phone down in frustration. If Waverly was really worried wouldn’t she be waiting by the phone? Maybe it was better this way.

She kicked away a torn piece of coupon book that clung to her boots and shoved her way out of the booth. Xavier was standing now at the far extremity of the lights, a lit cigarette in his mouth. She tucked her hands into her armpits, feeling cold, and stomped toward him. The truck drivers had begun, as if by mutual instinct, to wash down their rigs, scraping away mud and dust and smashed insects. The high powered hoses gusted water against the windshields which fell in a light mist on the rest of the gas station.

Wynonna walked through the artificial rainfall which glittered like snow in the bright white lights. For a second, she was taken with the beauty of it. Microscopic rainbows glittered from each droplet and she could see all of it. Could taste the great muddy river the water had come from, fresh with green and slithering things. She could feel it like tiny pinpricks on her skin even as it soaked through her clothes and hair leaving her wet and even colder.

Xavier looked up when she approached and he held out his arm which she easily slipped under without even thinking. His body was no warmer than the air that surrounded them.

“There was nobody home,” she muttered, shaking her head when he held out the cigarette for her to take. “How’d you get those so cheap?” She asked it even as she realized there was a more important question: they couldn’t eat but they could smoke? How did that work?

Xavier brought the butt back to his mouth and took a long draw. “Guy behind the counter sells loosies, no tax,” he said on the exhale. “I only got three though.”

They veered together from the cement lot onto the sidewalk, in some town of dimly lit warehouses and self storage units, a couple open fast food places, cut through with a three lane highway. Not really a town at all but she was sure there was a bar somewhere. Somewhere that had motorcycles and pickup trucks parked out front. And maybe a diner with a shower in the back where the nocturnal truckers stopped and rested.

She thought about how easily all those people could go missing in the dark, in this loud bright night.

“Where are the others?”

Xavier let the cigarette hang from the corner of his mouth.

“Doc and Kate took the car. They cruise for hitchhikers. Bobo looks for girls who will pick him up. Willa likes to act like she’s been hit by a car.”

“And they kill them? They kill them and drink their blood?”

He nodded.

“I don’t like it but we’ve got to live. Just pretend like it’s not happening. That’s what I did in Afghanistan. Just don’t think about it.”

Wynonna’s stomach turned but from perverse hunger or disgusted nausea she couldn’t tell. All her life she’d been a killer, she could feel it twitching beneath her muscles still, but this? This wasn’t the question that nagged her at night about whether she’d aimed to save her father or to destroy him. This was a question of whether she would kill the innocent to survive, now, in this moment.

“You meant to kill me. Why didn’t you?”

Xavier ducked his head and looked away.

“I just couldn’t. There was something… Maybe you’d be better off if I had.”

She had to think about that. Would she rather be dead? No, a voice whispered to her. She was a survivor. She’d never given up without a fight.

She steeled herself and looked Xavier in the eye.

“No, I want to live. Where do we start?”

“You’re sure?”

She swallowed, her throat dry, her skin cold, the euphoria of the night before thoroughly washed away.

“What choice do I have?”

The truck driver glanced at them from the corner of his eye. The passing streetlights and headlights of cars traveling the other direction swept across this face which was mostly cast in shadows.

“A little too old to be runaways, aren’t ya?”

Xavier shrugged and raised the beer he’d been given in a kind of jovial toast.

“But never too old to run away, right?”

The truck driver nodded, eyes scanning the road in front of them.

“Yeah, that’s alright. Sometimes home isn’t good.” 

Wynonna watched the condensation bead up on the bottle of cheap beer and roll down the side until it dribbled over her hand. It was strange she felt like she’d been here before because of course she had. She’d spent all her life running away. So there’d been nights in crappy motels or the backs of cars. There’d been rides with suspiciously friendly strangers. But everything was different now.

She closed her eyes as if that would make the sound go away, the one she could hear even over the sound of the engine. She could hear the man’s heartbeat, the rushing of his blood in his veins, and it made her hungry.

He glanced at her.

“You alright? Get car sick?”

Xavier rested his hand on her shoulder.

“No, she’s fine. Just tired is all.”

The truck driver snapped his gum in a way that sounded understanding.

“Oh, yeah. I forget other people aren’t nocturnal. Been years since I’ve really seen the sun. You don’t realize how much it matters until it’s gone.”

“I know what you mean,” Xavier muttered. “But you get used to it.”

“Uh, huh. Suppose so.”

Wynonna took a sip of the beer to steel herself and instantly regretted it. Her stomach turned and she gagged. 

“Stop, stop the truck!” She pulled open the door before the driver could shift down to a stop and let herself drop to the ground. She half expected her leg to break underneath her but it held and she stumbled away before puking up a stomachful of blood and bile.

The truck’s brakes screeched and she heard the driver’s side door open, the driver’s footsteps behind her. He came to a stop a few feet away.

“What the hell?”

This was her chance. All she need to do was stand up and grab him by the collar. She knew what she needed and she knew how to get it. But as she turned to see the man’s wide eyed face, his revulsion at the blood dripping down her chin, she knew she couldn’t do it.

She could tell Xavier knew it to. He was behind the truck driver, standing in the shadow cast by the truck. Their eyes met and he sighed. Then between one moment and the next, his hands were on the man’s head, twisting. There was a crack that ran through her bones and the truck driver went limp, collapsing into the dirt.

She stared even as some instinct drew her closer. Her fingers found the juncture of his throat. A pulse thrummed through the vein, once, twice, and went still. The man’s eyes were staring up at the big, dark night, stars maybe only Wynonna could see staring back down. There was a speck of dirt stuck to the glassy surface of his eye and her mind couldn’t wrap around why he wouldn’t blink it away but his eyes were drying out becoming tacky and opaque like a fish’s at the grocery store.

Xavier cleared his throat. “You better start before it goes cold,” he said.

And that was all she needed before her jaw was wrapped around the truck driver’s throat, her tongue running along stubble and the taste of stale sweat. Her teeth punched through the skin easily, too easily, and then she was lapping at that beautiful thing again. Warmth spread back through her limps and she felt her own heart thumping in her chest. It was better than any joint she’d ever lit, any drink she’d ever swallowed, anything she’d ever shot in her veins. If she’d had the time, the capacity, she would have had a thousand, a million different cliches to describe it and none of them would have come close. All she knew was that she would never be able to live without it.

After a moment Xavier came and lifted the body up between them, biting into the other side of the throat. His hand clamped on the back of her neck pulling her closer. They kissed through the corpse. They slipped blood into each other’s mouths- a French Inhale, an Irish Waterfall, a Shotgun Kiss. Wynonna began to think that she couldn’t live without Xavier either.

Waverly startledly herself awake, blinking her eyes open into a dark room soaked through with yellow street light. It seeped in around the edges of the shade drawn down over the large motel window and pooled out across the floor. She had kicked the heavy blankets off in her sleep but the air still felt sticky. 

The dream was fading fast so she could only remember the hard edges of it. Something about Wynonna. The night of the attack on the Homestead all mixed up with the months Wynonna had spent in juvie and her being missing now. Waverly wondered if she had replaced Nonna with Willa but that didn’t feel right. That had been some other nightmare. No, this time she thought Wynonna was Daddy and Waverly was the one with the gun.

She rolled over and nearly jumped out of her skin seeing someone else laying in the bed beside her. It was only Agent Haught, Nicole, she scolded herself. Being silly, forgetting where and when she was. 

The woman had her head tilted at an awkward probably uncomfortable angle, one arm flung across her eyes, hair turned into a halo of frizz around face. Waverly snorted. FBI agents weren’t supposed to be so cute. At least, she didn’t think so.

“What are you doing awake?” Nicole grumbled, only semi-articulate. “If you’re awake then I don’t have a reason to keep being asleep.”

Waverly squinted through the dark. One of Nicole’s eyes was just cracked open.

“I didn’t know you were awake,” Waverly said.

“I’m not.” Nicole shut the eye, tight. “I’m sleeping or at least I’m trying to.”

Waverly pushed herself up, resting back against the headboard. “Ya got insomnia?”

Nicole seemed to give up, pushing her hair out of her face and reaching over for the bedside lamp. It snapped on and Waverly turned her head away, wincing.

“Sorry,” Nicole said. “Yeah. Insomnia. Chronic. I just can’t seem to make it through the night, even if I’m dead tired.”

“You know,” Waverly said wistfully. “I read once that people used to sleep in two shifts. Because they would go to sleep not long after the sundown, well they couldn’t sleep for like twelve hours so in the middle of the night, the witching hour, they would get up and do something. Something quiet like write letters, knitting, reading, just sit up and talk. Um, make love.”

That, she didn’t know why she’d added that. The point could have been made perfectly fine without it. So why? Waverly silently cursed herself.

Nicole laughed, a short laugh that was at least partially snort.

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah.” Waverly scooted to the edge of the bed and stood up. “Actually, getting up and doing something else is a great cure for insomnia. Me and my sister when we can’t sleep, we get up and have ourselves a party.”

“And I assume neither of you have particularly difficult jobs that need energy and absolute focus to complete.”

“Oh, don’t be a snob. Your current plan isn’t working and cops are supposed to survive on coffee anyway.”

Waverly was grabbing her coat and throwing it on over her pajamas, jamming her bare feet into boots for the second time in so many days.

“I’m not a cop,” Nicole said behind her grumpily but she was getting up too. 

They stepped outside into the crisp night, clinging against the wall of the motel, rows of doors and parking spots stretching out to their left and right and the highway in front of them where even at this hour cars raced by. 

Waverly went to her car and popped the trunk open. “It’s in here somewhere,” she mumbled to herself.

Nicole kept her hands stuffed in her leather jacket, looking around furtively.

“Ah! There it is!” Waverly popped her head out of the trunk brandishing a half full bottle of whiskey. “This is perfect!”

Nicole raised an eyebrow. “You keep that in your trunk?”

“No, silly.” Waverly flapped a hand at her. “My sister hid it there.”

“Oh, duh,” Nicole said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Should have known.”

Waverly got a bucket of ice from the ice machine and brought her finds back to the room. Nicole collected two glasses from the bathroom and they sat down on the floor facing each other with their backs up against the bed frames.

In the diner they had talked about all sorts of things: Nicole’s assignment to track down a group of murderous scavengers who circled the region endlessly, Wynonna’s kidnapping by what seemed to be that same group, the possibly questionable decision for the two of them to travel together to reach their respective goals all on the FBI’s dime. What they hadn’t talked about was what sort of person Waverly’s sister was or really Waverly for that matter.

“So,” Nicole said watching the whiskey swirl around in her glass, her wrist tilting. “You and your sister can’t sleep sometimes and then you sit up and drink whiskey?”

“I don’t always have whiskey. I’m partial to fruity cocktails. Especially with tequila. But this!” Waverly raised her glass. “This is in Wynonna’s honor. Because we’re gonna get her back.”

Nicole watched her with big, sad eyes. “I have to be honest with you. This group, my boss calls them ‘the Firefly family’ like from those Rob Zombie movies, they don’t take prisoners.”

“And you already said they don’t act during the day or leave witnesses, so they’re already breaking their pattern.”

“That’s what worries me.” Nicole took a big gulp of the whiskey and reached for the bottle to refill her glass. “It makes me wonder what your sister is to them.”

Waverly hummed and tapped her toe against Nicole’s knee. Squashed the impulse to kiss her and wipe that troubled look off her face.

“You’ll see. Wynonna’s a major bitch but she’s a ‘good kid underneath’. That’s what everyone says.”

Waverly came to just before dawn to the rocking of the freight train racing across the west. She was nestled against Xavier’s chest in the hay. Bobo and Willa and Doc and Kate sprawled out around them, legs and arms twined. A collection of creatures gathered together for warmth, slow breaths moving in unison. There was a freedom to it, the idea that they could go anywhere, do anything and nothing and no one could stop them. The inhumanness that clung to their skin was intoxicating and she wondered if this was what she had been looking for all along in all her years of wandering. The only thing that made her question it was the stench of blood hanging in the air.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading  
> leave a comment or kudos if you liked it (or honestly if you hated it too)


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